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mikejuk (1801200) writes After seven days the Jibo project has over $1.1 million. What is surprising is that Jibo isn't a complex piece of hardware that will do the dishes and pick up clothes. It doesn't move around at all. It just sits and interacts with the family using a camera, microphones and a voice. It is a social robot, the speciality of the founder, MIT's, Cynthia Breazeal. The idea is that this robot will be your friend, take photos, remind you of appointments, order takeaway and tell the kids a story. If you watch the promo video then you can't help but think that this is all too polished and the real thing will fall flat on its face when delivered. If it does work then worry about the hundreds of kids needing psychiatric counselling — shades of Robbie in I, Robot. Even if it is hopelessly hyped — there is a development system and I want one. It is the early days of the home computer all over again.

The robot barely moves, you could pretty much just put a cell phone on a stand and run a Jibo app and it would be the same thing. Make a $100 stand that's capable of being articulated about by cell phone software, and you could do everything that's in this video.

So while the youtube video is fun, what the company is really promising is a version of Siri that's far & away better than what Apple is capable of, delivered in less than a year and a half, on a budget far smaller than Apple's. I wish them the best but I'm sorry, I have to be a knee-jerk cynic.

Sure, there are a lot of accounts created to prop up the sales numbers but aren't claiming rewards to otherwise make the project look more awesome. There is actual investors to this company, and they are likely looking for a return on their investment. Propping up their own campaign to make their company look more powzers to the media, thereby getting more presales doesn't exactly seem that far fetched. Either that or there are a lot of people who believe in what these guys are doing and don't want the product in the end.